eau sucree.
'You may return,' said Madame de Bourke. 'I compel no one to share our dangers and hardships.'
But Babette threw herself on her knees, and declared that nothing should ever separate her from Madame! She was a good creature, but she could not deny herself the luxury of the sobs and tears that showed to all beholders the extent of her sacrifice.
Madame de Bourke knew that there would be considerable discomfort in a vessel so little adapted for passengers, and with only one small cabin, which the captain, who spoke French, resigned to her use. It would only, however, be for a short time, and though it was near the end of October, the blue expanse of sea was calm as only the Mediterranean can be, so that she trusted that no harm would result to those who would have to spend the night on dock.
It was a beautiful evening which the little Genoese vessel left the harbour and Cette receded in the distance, looking fairer the farther it was left behind. The children were put to bed as soon as they could be persuaded to cease from watching the lights in the harbour and the phosphorescent wake of the vessel in the water.
That night and the next day were pleasant and peaceful; there was no rough weather, and little sickness among the travellers. Madame de Bourke congratulated herself on having escaped the horrors of the Pyrenean journey, and the Genoese captain assured her that unless the weather should change rapidly, they would wake in sight of the Spanish coast the next morning. If the sea were not almost too calm, they would be there already. The evening was again so delightful that the children were glad to hear that they would have again to return by sea, and Arthur, who somewhat shrank from his presentation to the Count, regretted that the end of the voyage was so near, though Ulysse assured him that 'Mon papa would love him, because he could tell such charming stories,' and Lanty testified that 'M. le Comte was a mighty friendly gentleman.'
Arthur was lying asleep on deck, wrapped in his cloak, when he was awakened by a commotion among the sailors. He started up and found that it was early morning, the sun rising above the sea, and the sailors all gazing eagerly in that direction. He eagerly made his way to ask if they were in sight of land, recollecting, however, as he made the first step, that Spain lay to the west of them-not to the east.
He distinguished the cry from the Genoese sailors, 'Ii Moro-Il Moro,' in tones of horror and consternation, and almost at the same moment received a shock from Maitre Hebert, who came stumbling against him.
'Pardon, pardon, Monsieur; I go to prepare Madame! It's the accursed Moors. Let me pass-misericorde, what will become of us?'
Arthur struggled on in search of such of the crew as could speak French, but all were in too much consternation to attend to him, and he could only watch that to which their eyes were directed, a white sail, bright in the morning light, coming up with a rapidity strange and fearful in its precision, like a hawk pouncing on its prey, for it did not depend on its sails alone, but was propelled by oars.
The next moment Madame de Bourke was on deck, holding by the Abbe's arm, and Estelle, her hair on her shoulders, clinging to her. She looked very pale, but her calmness was in contrast to the Italian sailors, who were throwing themselves with gestures of despair, screaming out vows to the Madonna and saints, and shouting imprecations. The skipper came to speak to her. 'Madame,' he said, 'I implore you to remain in your cabin. After the first, you and all yours will be safe. They cannot harm a French subject; alas! alas would it were so with us.'
'How then will it be with you?' she asked.
He made a gesture of deprecation.
'For me it will be ruin; for my poor fellows slavery; that is, if we survive the onset. Madame, I entreat of you, take shelter in the cabin, yourself and all yours. None can answer for what the first rush of these fiends may be! Diavoli! veri diavola! Ah! for which of my sins is it that after fifty voyages I should be condemned to lose my all?'
A fresh outburst of screams from the crew summoned the captain. 'They are putting out the long-boat,' was the cry; 'they will board us!'
'Madame! I entreat of you, shut yourself into the cabin.'
And the four maids in various stages of deshabille, adding their cries to those of the sailors, tried to drag her in, but she looked about for Arthur. 'Come with us, Monsieur,' she said quietly, for after all her previous depressions and alarms, her spirit rose to endurance in the actual stress of danger. 'Come with us, I entreat of you,' she said. 'You are named in our passports, and the treaties are such that neither French nor English subjects can be maltreated nor enslaved by these wretches. As the captain says, the danger is only in the first attack.'
'I will protect you, Madame, with my life,' declared Arthur, drawing his sword, as his cheeks and eyes lighted.
'Ah, put that away. What could you do but lose your own?' cried the lady. 'Remember, you have a mother-'
The Genoese captain here turned to insist that Madame and all the women should shut themselves instantly into the cabin. Estelle dragged hard at Arthur's hand, with entreaties that he would come, but he lifted her down the ladder, and then closed the door on her, Lanty and he being both left outside.
'To be shut into a hole like a rat in a trap when there's blows to the fore, is more than flesh could stand,' said Lanty, who had seized on a hand-spike and was waving it about his head, true shillelagh fashion, by hereditary instinct in one who had never behold a faction fight, in what ought to have been his native land.
The Genoese captain looked at him as a madman, and shouted in a confused mixture of French and Italian to lay down his weapon.
'Quei cattivi-ces scelerats were armed to the teeth-would fire. All lie flat on the deck.'
The gesture spoke for itself. With a fearful howl all the Italians dropped flat; but neither Scotch nor Irish blood brooked to follow their example, or perhaps fully perceived the urgency of the need, till a volley of bullets were whistling about their ears, though happily without injury, the mast and the rigging having protected them, for the sail was riddled with holes, and the smoke dimmed their vision as the report sounded in their ears. In another second the turbaned, scimitared figures were leaping on board. The Genoese still lay flat offering no resistance, but Lanty and Arthur stood on either side of the ladder, and hurled back the two who first approached; but four or five more rushed upon them, and they would have been instantly cut down, had it not been for a shout from the Genoese, 'Franchi! Franchi!' At that magic word, which was evidently understood, the pirates only held the two youths tightly, vituperating them no doubt in bad Arabic,-Lanty grinding his teeth with rage, though scarcely feeling the pain of the two sabre cuts he had received, and pouring forth a volley of exclamations, chiefly, however, directed against the white-livered spalpeens of sailors, who had not lifted so much as a hand to help him. Fortunately no one understood a word he said but Arthur, who had military experience enough to know there was nothing for it but to stand still in the grasp of his captor, a wiry-looking Moor, with a fez and a striped sash round his waist.
The leader, a sturdy Turk in a dirty white turban, with a huge sabre in his hand, was listening to the eager words, poured out with many gesticulations by the Genoese captain, in a language utterly incomprehensible to the Scot, but which was the lingua Franca of the Mediterranean ports.
It resulted in four men being placed on guard at the hatchway leading to the cabin, while all the rest, including Arthur, Hebert, Laurence, were driven toward the prow, and made to understand by signs that they must not move on peril of their lives. A Tuck was placed at the helm, and the tartane's head turned towards the pirate captor; and all the others, who were not employed otherwise, began to ransack the vessel and feast on the provisions. Some hams were thrown overboard, with shouts of evident scorn as belonging to the unclean beast, but the wine was eagerly drank, and Maitre Hebert uttered a wail of dismay as he saw five Moors gorging large pieces of his finest pate.
CHAPTER IV-WRECKED
'They had na sailed upon the sea A day but barely three, When the lift grew dark and the wind blew cauld And gurly grew the sea. 'Oh where will I find a little wee boy Will tak my helm in hand, Till I gae up to my top mast And see for some dry land.' SIR PATRICK SPENS.
It was bad enough on the deck of the unfortunate Genoese tartane, but far worse below, where eight persons were shut into the stifling atmosphere of the cabin, deprived of the knowledge of what was going on above, except from the terrific sounds they heard. Estelle, on being shut into the cabin, announced that the Phoenician ship was taken by the vessels of Sesostris, but this did not afford any one else the same satisfaction as she appeared to
